Once I reached the age of obtaining gainful employment, I got greedy in my book-collecting, but why not? As near as I could tell, they were only being printed for me!
A schoolfriend once asked, when he was round our house, 'why have you got so many books?'. In later life I've been asked the same sort of questions: "what do you need all these books for?" etc. I don't even have that many.
My Dad used to laugh about how a relative once said, when he'd bought a book or two, "...but you've already got
loads of books!", as though books are like tins of baked beans. To be fair, quite a few of them are: is it really necessary to own two Dan Browns, for example
My Dad reckoned he learned a lot from reading old westerns.
He did too.
Another schoolmate struggled badly with reading (he's very bright but quite dyslexic). The school completely failed him, with one teacher pretty much telling his parents that he was probably retarded and so nothing could be done - this, incredibly was in the 1980s. To his credit he found some literature that appealed to his interests, such as the Fleming James Bond novels and those 'Target' Doctor Who books and managed to teach himself to read through sheer enthusiasm.
I think my grandad did something similar, having received little formal education, and having gained in fluency through his own efforts became an avid reader. Which brings me on to...
[...] To combat the staggering tedium which clearly accompanied many people's army years he had picked up the habit of reading absolutely everything - from books, to out of date newspapers, to the information writtem on the side of tinned goods and packets of tea. I picked the habit up at a very young age.
My grandad used to say that both my Dad and I would 'read the label on a sauce bottle', and he wasn't wrong - although it seemed to escape his notice that he'd do the exact same thing - which makes me wonder if reading at the table (considered bad manners until quite recently) might be a symptom of some genetic quirk